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Bro pages: like man pages, but with examples only

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Re: Bro pages: like man pages, but with examples only

#691

Post by Crake »

prodigal_erik wrote: post #608
KuraFire wrote: post #568

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey dude, here's a hint: perhaps these women are arguing on social media because guys like you fail to give them the basic modicum of respect as a human being, and they have to spend time fighting to be respected, which takes away from their time to build stuff. Whereas, unlike your privileged life wherein people don't fundamentally deny you basic human respect, you have plenty of time to spend on doing things you en…

> unlike your privileged life wherein people don't fundamentally deny you basic human respect Nerds are not afforded basic human respect unless their rare obsession happens to become valuable to somebody. We're merely being tolerated for the time being. And I don't believe anyone has ever gained a shred of respect by complaining about the lack of it. That just reinforces one's image as weak and unpleasant to interact…

>Nerds are not afforded basic human respect unless their rare obsession happens to become valuable to somebody.

I do think this might be part of why the social justice warriors and feminists seem so hellbent on targeting the tech community lately; people who have been bullied their whole lives tend to just put up with more of the same, and nerds have long been an acceptable target for bullying. I don't see a lot of self flagellation about sexism from the lawyer profession, which attracts a different personality type entirely.

>I suggest supporting your arguments for the many other readers will have greater overall effect.

That's very generous of you, but these people rarely have an argument. Hence the plethora of bland ad hominems, I suppose.

Re: Bro pages: like man pages, but with examples only

#692

Post by spoiler »

I seriously can't fathom why so many people have a problem with the name (because it may or may not affect a third party, however has not directly affected the person writing the post. Wat). Y U mad, bro?! [1]

It's a cool thing, I love the whimsical name (I find it witty and clever)!

[1] I apologise, for that; it was just too tempting!

Re: Bro pages: like man pages, but with examples only

#693

Post by spoiler »

I seriously can't fathom why so many people have a problem with the name (because it may or may not affect a third party, however has not directly affected the person writing the post. Wat). Y U mad, bro?! [1]

It's a cool thing, I love the whimsical name (I find it witty and clever)!

[1] I apologise for that; it was just too tempting!

Re: Bro pages: like man pages, but with examples only

#694

Post by nostrademons »

VexXtreme wrote: post #671
jabelk wrote: post #660

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Me. Right here. I am a woman and while I can obviously recognize that it is a joke, seeing these "jokes" everywhere is literally the worst part of my day. Reading tech news, browsing this site, and on every other technology related site, 10+ times every day I am inundated with these hilarious "jokes" implicitly suggesting that this community, this interest, is for a specific group of people that I am not, and will ne…

Rather than forcing the entire world to change to fit your world views and personality, it's always a better idea to simply stop seeking validation from the world and stop caring about things like this. If you are feeling excluded it's because you are choosing to feel excluded, not because anyone is deliberately trying to make you feel that way. I am a western person living in an incredibly exclusionary and xenophobi…

So, I'm male and I'll confess that if this debate had happened a year ago I would've been firmly on your side, arguing that the onus is on the offendee not to be offended.

I think that's what's changed for me is the recognition that we're all imperfect, we're human, and sometimes we'll offend people by accident but that doesn't excuse us from trying to change things for the better once we realize we've offended someone. The reason I'd argued that "you're going to get offended, deal with it" was because I felt that if I didn't believe that, I'd be on the hook for every possible minor offense I might cause, and there's no possible way that I could know of or predict all of them beforehand. But eventually I realized that that's not what people are asking: they just want you to understand that from the POV of someone marginalized, such comments are exclusionary, and to do your best not to make them in the future. It's not about censoring every possible utterance you might make in the future, it's about self-censoring this one.

Nobody's asking you to give up your identity. But the thing is - is being able to use the word "bro" such a core part of your identity that avoiding it means giving up your identity? Could you just avoid it as a favor to the people out there who feel bad when they hear it?

Re: Bro pages: like man pages, but with examples only

#695

Post by Crake »

cuttle wrote: post #675
prodigal_erik wrote: post #608

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> unlike your privileged life wherein people don't fundamentally deny you basic human respect Nerds are not afforded basic human respect unless their rare obsession happens to become valuable to somebody. We're merely being tolerated for the time being. And I don't believe anyone has ever gained a shred of respect by complaining about the lack of it. That just reinforces one's image as weak and unpleasant to interact…

Are you really arguing that the “oppression” faced by white, heterosexual, cisgendered, male nerds is comparable to the denial of human rights that women, non-whites, transgendered people, and other oppressed groups face every day of their lives? I'm not looking to get into the oppression olympics, but to claim that it's in any way comparable suggests a fundamental, offensive lack of awareness about others' experienc…

Women in first world countries have the same rights that men do--if not more, as in the case of being exempt from the draft. Since the "denial of human rights" we are talking about in this thread is over the use of the word "bro," and the (to feminists) perceived social ostracizing of women as a result of the word existing, mentioning another minority well known for being socially ostracized isn't exactly a stretch.

Also, please stop hating on the white het cis males. I may not be one myself, but they are my friends, and my allies, and I also don't like seeing people treated poorly for the way they were born (having experienced too much of that myself). You are setting back the GLBT and PoC equality movements every time you hate someone based on their sex, race, gender, or sexual orientation. It's not appreciated.

Re: Bro pages: like man pages, but with examples only

#696

Post by VexXtreme »

jabelk wrote: post #681
VexXtreme wrote: post #671

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rather than forcing the entire world to change to fit your world views and personality, it's always a better idea to simply stop seeking validation from the world and stop caring about things like this. If you are feeling excluded it's because you are choosing to feel excluded, not because anyone is deliberately trying to make you feel that way. I am a western person living in an incredibly exclusionary and xenophobi…

I didn't find the bro thing offensive. What I DO find offensive is you marginalizing gender issues by comparing them to your experience vacationing in Asia. I am not "miserable" or "angry." I was trying to let you know why women have a problem with this type of thing. Nowhere did I say everyone should be the same. But usually, there is a balance to the "jokes". To use your example from your time in Asian (or rather a…

> What I DO find offensive is you marginalizing gender issues by comparing them to your experience vacationing in Asia.

This comment pisses me off. Living in a foreign country and being marginalized is completely different from being a woman in the tech field in a first world western democracy. I get reminded of the fact that I'm different literally every time I leave my apartment and deal with another human being, whereas for you it happens when you open HN and see a joke about bros or something to that effect. I have literally been denied housing multiple times on the account of not being a local and that fact wasn't even hidden from me. Do I care? Not really, I just went elsewhere and sorted it out. As I said, you can't change people but you can choose who you deal with and how you perceive the world.

>We are, to use your analogy, white people living in Asia except there is nowhere else to live.

You are literally complaining about something that is a first world problem and completely blowing it out of proportion. People like you give female and minority tech workers a bad name. What employer wants to hire someone who is going to cause a shitstorm and potentially threaten with lawsuits every time someone cracks a well meaning joke. I for one would now be very wary of hiring you for the fear of you not tolerating other people at the office, or even worse, suing me and my company. Good job sister. You sound like tons of fun to be around.

Re: Bro pages: like man pages, but with examples only

#697

Post by adrienne »

Myrmornis wrote: post #653
natch wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just keep in mind, for every comfortable woman in tech, there are many uncomfortable women who stayed out of tech. because of the stuff that for whatever reason doesn't bother you, but does bother them. Their voices are not represented here. And the tech world is the poorer for it.

Woman are not in tech because we fail at the high school education phase: we need to do better at encouraging women to study STEM subjects at university. I don't believe the current environment at tech companies is the problem. If it is a rather male dominated culture that is the effect, not the cause.

Wrong. Yes, there is a pipeline problem; however, women also leave STEM fields at more than twice the rate men do.[0] And when we do, the reasons we cite include the fact that it's a boys' club, as well as outright harassment.

[0]: (This is an overview, but also cites some actual peer-reviewed studies) http://www.forbes.com/2010/06/08/science-engineering-gender-...

Re: Bro pages: like man pages, but with examples only

#698

Post by ElComradio »

Steuard wrote: post #605
falcolas wrote: post #582

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A short confession. After participating in this forum for a few years, I never thought this was an actual problem. Watching this whole thread of conversation has been very enlightening, and not in the way I had hoped. So, on behalf of those of us who had not seen these attitudes before so blatantly on parade, my sincerest apologies.

For me that moment of realization came about three years ago, on an entirely different forum. I came into a discussion (on a topic similar to this) between a female friend of mine and another guy a few hours after it started. Every post of his had me nodding: I probably would have said just the same thing if he hadn't beaten me to it. So it was frustrating and confusing to see my friend getting increasingly hurt and…

This attitude is a clear echo of what a Pentacostal girl said to me when I was 15, hoping/expecting I would take up her religion later on when I originally thought it was stupid.

Re: Bro pages: like man pages, but with examples only

#699

Post by VexXtreme »

nostrademons wrote: post #694
VexXtreme wrote: post #671

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rather than forcing the entire world to change to fit your world views and personality, it's always a better idea to simply stop seeking validation from the world and stop caring about things like this. If you are feeling excluded it's because you are choosing to feel excluded, not because anyone is deliberately trying to make you feel that way. I am a western person living in an incredibly exclusionary and xenophobi…

So, I'm male and I'll confess that if this debate had happened a year ago I would've been firmly on your side, arguing that the onus is on the offendee not to be offended. I think that's what's changed for me is the recognition that we're all imperfect, we're human, and sometimes we'll offend people by accident but that doesn't excuse us from trying to change things for the better once we realize we've offended someo…

> Nobody's asking you to give up your identity. But the thing is - is being able to use the word "bro" such a core part of your identity that avoiding it means giving up your identity? Could you just avoid it as a favor to the people out there who feel bad when they hear it?

I would avoid it if it was a slur that belittles other people. So no. If you choose to be offended by a word that young men in North America men use to fraternize, it's your problem. I'm not even American and I really couldn't care less when my American coworkers call me "bro".

Let's say I find dogs offensive and dog owners alienating. Is it reasonable for me to ask the society to be more mindful of my feelings and make people stop walking dogs while I'm out? No, and I think we can agree that a person making such a request would likely be borderline mentally ill, or at the very least, unadjusted to living in the society. So where do we draw a line between mental illness and a simply asking not to be excluded? If everyone's opinion is equally respected, who is the authority that decides what's reasonable and what's not? Let me guess, you? Because it furthers your purpose right?

In fact, I've just remembered we have a git branch at work called "bro". Makes me realize the dire implications of a simple joke like that - we could potentially get sued by an intolerant employee. No wonder companies have started looking for culture fits these days, it's become very risky and expensive to hire people who are different because there is a good chance they will sue over frivolous reasons. Not saying I am like that, but can you see where I am going with this and how this mindset is actually damaging to minorities? Can you see how many employers would just choose to not hire a minority person simply because they are afraid of the implications? This way of thinking does MORE DAMAGE than good. Does what I wrote make sense?

Re: Bro pages: like man pages, but with examples only

#700

Post by Crake »

rds2000 wrote: post #549
ceol wrote: post #524

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but if you were look them up, they're twittering and having fun more than building. The irony of this comment being in a long-winded post on Hacker News is lost, perhaps? You do realize the vast majority of "programmers" aren't building 100% of the time. Judging by that and the fact you throw out "feminist" like it's an insult, I'm going to say you've got some pretty heavy bias.

I don't want to make personal examples, if you compare the look at the replies to @defunkt's twitter post, the females cheering - who even go so far as to overly call themselves feminists - have basically no engineer cred to speak for. Not on github, not on LinkedIn. Judging by that and the fact you throw out "feminist" like it's an insult, I'm going to say you've got some pretty heavy bias. Bias? Feminists on twitte…

One thing I've always loved about math and science and code is how gender neutral it is. Historically, sure, there's been some bias, but it's mostly a thing of the past. Equality of opportunity (which we are now approaching, if we haven't achieved already, at least for the female gender) is not necessarily going to give us an equal 50/50 representation of the sexes in a specific field. Boys and girls tend to utilize their free time very differently.

Engineering has always been about results, so being capable is really the most important thing. I can see how that would be offensive to feminists, who like to push affirmative action and so on, but at a very basic level science and the fields deriving from it do not care about the social attributes of the person performing them.

This might be why the sjws have such a hard time understanding why tech people are so allergic to them--the sjws derive value exclusively from superficial attributes, like race and sex. However, bad code is bad code whether it's an evil cis white male who wrote it, or a poor queer poc. Logic is fundamentally egalitarian. SJWs are very anti-egalitarian.

Feminists are all for women in tech, so long as they don't have to be the woman in tech. Unless, as you've noted, "being a woman in tech" means tweeting to friends all day long. Sometimes I feel like the people who complain about stereotypes the most are the reasons those stereotypes even exist.

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